2023 STEM Education Research Mentors
Rachael Barry
Assistant Professor of Teaching
Email: rmbarry@uci.edu
Department: Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
Education Research Interests: Biology curriculum development, understanding and improvement of student-instructor relationships inside and outside of the classroom
Qualifications: Organize and time management, committed to developing new research skills, work independently and in teams
Natascha Buswell
Associate Professor of Teaching
Email: Nbuswell@uci.edu
Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Education Research Interests: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) among teaching methods in STEM classrooms with qualitative analysis
Qualifications: Interested in STEM equity and research, communicative and weekly reflections of their learning
Audrey Chen Lew
Assistant Professor of Teaching
Email: Lewac@uci.edu
Department: Neurobiology and Behavior
Education Research Interests: Develop and validate assessment tools to evaluate neuroscience learning of core concepts, to identify best practices for effective instructor feedback, and to evaluate the effectiveness of curriculum in teaching current laboratory technology.
Qualifications: Able to take initiative and responsibility with research projects, interview skills, qualitative coding, statistics, or academic writing may be required
David Copp
Assistant Professor of Teaching
Email: dcopp@uci.edu
Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Education Research Interests: Engineering education: students’ persistence, self-efficacy, teamwork, and general learning strategies.with quantitative and qualitative approaches
Qualifications: Motivated to better understand and explore engineering student learning, some knowledge but not required of the following: statistical analysis, qualitative data collection and analysis, programming experience.
Quoc-Viet Dang
Assistant Professor of Teaching
Email: qpdang@uci.edu
Department: EECS
Education Research Interests: Development of data collection and analysis of student work, machine learning to identify potential bias in course assessments
Qualifications: Solid background in programming and ability to apply their knowledge in higher education setting, experience in group projects in classrooms and/or internships are highly encouraged
Christopher Davis
Professor of Teaching
Email: daviscj@uci.edu
Department: Mathematics
Education Research Interests: Technology impact in the classroom: annotation software & Al models
Qualifications: Have a specific topic interest, familiarity with appropriate statistical tools would be helpful but not required
Mine Dogucu
Assistant Professor of Teaching
Email: mdogucu@uci.edu
Department: Statistics
Education Research Interests: Physical and cognitive accessibility for data science and statistics,curricular development, instructor readiness, probabilistic and Bayesian thinking.
Qualifications: Basic knowledge of data cleaning and analysis with R
Kimberly Edwards
Professor of Teaching
Email: kdmullen@uci.edu
Department: Chemistry
Education Research Interests: Laboratory curriculum development: argument driven inquiry projects and specifications grading, educational technology, computational chemistry and scientific writing.
Qualifications: Interested in chemistry labs and are passionate for development, analysis, and scientific inquiry
Pavan Kadandale
Professor of Teaching
Email: pavan.k@uci.edu
Department: Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
Education Research Interests: Critical thinking in large classrooms, create learning communities, decrease opportunity gaps
Qualifications: Curiosity about the world and problem solving skills, willing to learn and grow
Christine King
Associate Professor of Teaching
Email: kingce@uci.edu
Department: Biomedical Engineering
Education Research Interests: Engineering education for biomedical engineers and medical students, development of online program for clinical immersion with virtual reality medical procedures to identify unmet needs in healthcare through active learning techniques
Qualifications: Highly motivated students who are versed in computer science, video editing and/or gaming. Proficient in programming languages is preferred and experience using video editing software.
Joel Lanning
Associate Professor of Teaching
Email: joel.lanning@uci.edu
Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Education Research Interests: Developing discipline-specific (structural engineering) pedagogy: active learning strategies and technologies.
Qualifications: Proficiency in basic engineering mechanics, communicative, basic programming useful but not required
Star Lee
Assistant Professor of Teaching
Email: star.lee@uci.edu
Department: Developmental and Cell Biology
Education Research Interests: Integration of social issues to support students in STEM classrooms and teaching improvements for professional development among graduate teaching assistants
Qualifications: Interested in learning about science education research
Steve Mang
Associate Professor of Teaching
Email: smang@uci.edu
Department: Chemistry
Education Research Interests: Curriculum improvements and experiement development for chemistry lab courses to observe changes in student confidence of course content, alternative grading strategies in upper-division courses
Qualifications: Interested in chemistry education or other fields of science education and/or designing assessments for writing classes or laboratory chemistry classes
Brian Sato
Professor of Teaching
Email: bsato@uci.edu
Department: Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
Education Research Interests: Faculty impact on colleagues and students in their department, identify programs and policies to support student success
Qualifications: Willing to take initiative, good teamwork and meet deadlines, have data expertise or taken social science courses but not required
Laura Tucker
Associate Professor of Teaching
Email: tucker@uci.edu
Department: Physics & Astronomy
Education Research Interests: Curriculum changes in physics courses, measure and improve student experiences in undergraduate science curriculum.
Qualifications: Desire to learn and contribute in team settings, passionate about improving student experiences, and dedicate time for projects and group meetings
Adrienne Williams
Assistant Professor of Teaching
Email: adriw@uci.edu
Department: Developmental and Cell Biology
Education Research Interests: Student metacognition: effective study strategies
Qualifications: Motivated to improve student success in STEM, interested in designing small research projects and maintain progress